Saturday, June 06, 2009

Rich fayre

I DON'T know what it is with my local newsagent, but he has become very friendly with me since his picture turned up in the South Wales Eggcup as a local business champion. He also happened to notice my rather overlarge byline and picture on the letters page and now he wants to talk to me about everything under the sun. The trouble is he cannot remember my name, however many times I remind him.This morning was a perfect case in point. Popping in for a pint of milk I arrived at the counter where there was a slight delay while the cogs clicked around in his head. "Hello... um... um..." he said as I waited patiently for my purchase. Then, just as I was about to jog his memory, he had a Eureka moment. "Nick!" he said, his face glowing with pride as if he had just got the final answer in Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.Having overcome this major hurdle he then decided to discuss the merits of my job, the weather, the political situation and my wedding."Well, Richard, when are you moving on then? Not very good weather is it, Richard? What about that Gordon Brown, Richard, eh? Enjoying married life, are you, Rich?"I couldn't help being reminded of the character Trigger and the way in Only Fools and Horses that he always refers to Rodney as Dave.

Last night was the boy Smashy's birthday and he was joined in the celebrations by a good contingent from Meeja Wales, plus Ballsy, who was making a rare visit to our neck of the woods from London.Also joining us was Shutts, who looked like some kind of giant, overripe banana in a garish American bomber jacket provided courtesy of the San Diego Padres, having recently returned from a trip to America.Unfortunately our mottley crew have taken to drinking in the gastro-pub that is Zero Degrees early on Friday evenings because of a happy hour where they dispense strong pints of lager for the princely price of £2. Just great, except that by 9pm many of us are feeling decidely worse for wear.As we watched England lose to the mighty cricketing talents of Holland in the opening game of the World Twenty20 Cup, our chances of remaining reasonably sober weren't helped by the Prince of Darkness, who decided to mark our colleague's big occasion by going for the shots."15 sambucas!" he shouted excitedly at the barman. Hmmm. None of us really fancied Sambuca at 8pm. It completely caught out the bar staff, too, who didn't have enough shot glasses so had to serve them in half-pint pots. It was all downhill from there.I opted to wobble home at 9.30 but my sources tell me that Smashy was still going strong, dancing to his favourite Indy music in the City Arms at 1am in the morning - and he still made it to work for 10.30. Top effort.